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FBI chief describes GPS problem from court ruling
Court Feed News |
2012/03/08 17:14
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A recent Supreme Court ruling is forcing the FBI to deactivate its GPS tracking devices in some investigations, agency director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.
Mueller told a congressional panel that the bureau has turned off a substantial number of GPS units and is using surveillance by agents instead.
"Putting a physical surveillance team out with six, eight, 12 persons is tremendously time intensive," Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee. The court ruling "will inhibit our ability to use this in a number of surveillances where it has been tremendously beneficial."
Mueller declined to say how many devices were deactivated. The FBI's general counsel said at a law school conference two weeks ago that the FBI has 3,000 GPS devices.
In January, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without first getting a judge's approval. On Wednesday night, the FBI said many of the GPS trackers were placed with court authorization and so were not deactivated.
"We have a number of people in the United States who we could not indict, there's not probable cause to indict them or to arrest them who present a threat of terrorism, articulated maybe up on the Internet, may have purchased a gun, but taken no particular steps to take a terrorist act," Mueller said. "And we are stuck in the position of surveilling that person for a substantial period of time." |
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Ohio school shooting case may go to adult court
Court Feed News |
2012/03/07 14:05
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A 17-year-old boy charged in a school shooting rampage that left three students dead was told by a judge on Tuesday that the case could be sent to adult court for trial.
Authorities will decide later whether T.J. Lane will be tried as an adult and face a possible life sentence if convicted.
Lane, who is charged with three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault, did not enter a plea Tuesday when he appeared before Juvenile Judge Tim Grendell.
The judge postponed a hearing on the adult-court matter from March 19 until April 3 because two new attorneys have joined the defense team.
Lane watched the judge without visible emotion, blinking occasionally. He was taken into court under heavy security, a deputy's hand on his arm. He was dressed in an outfit similar to what he wore last week in court — a tan, open-collared dress shirt and dark slacks.
Relatives of the victims faced Lane from the jury box. Some wore memorial ribbons of red and black, the colors of Chardon High School.
Lane spoke in response to routine questions from the judge about his understanding of the case and his rights. |
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Conn. high court rules prisoners can be force-fed
Court Feed News |
2012/03/06 13:30
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Connecticut prison inmates who go on hunger strikes can be restrained and force-fed to protect them from life-threatening dehydration and malnutrition, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The 7-0 decision came in the case of 51-year-old prisoner William Coleman, a Liverpool, England, native who stopped eating in September 2007 to protest his conviction on what he claimed was a fabricated rape charge by his ex-wife. The court rejected Coleman's claims that force-feeding violated his free speech rights and international law.
Coleman's weight dropped from 237 pounds to 129 pounds by October 2008, and a prison doctor who believed Coleman was at risk of dying or developing irreversible health problems determined it was necessary to force-feed him by inserting a feeding tube through his nose and into his stomach.
The first of what Coleman's lawyers say was about a dozen forced feedings was performed on Oct. 23, 2008, after prison officials had obtained permanent authority to force-feed him after a trial in Superior Court. Coleman appealed the Superior Court judge's ruling to the Supreme Court.
Coleman resumed taking liquid nutrition voluntarily in late 2008 and returned to a normal weight, court records say, but the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut says he went back on the hunger strike last week. |
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US Court rules against Helm in suit over ad
Court Feed News |
2012/03/02 17:14
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A New York court says Levon Helm long ago signed away rights that let an advertising agency use the song "The Weight" in a cellphone commercial.
The Band's former drummer and singer sued ad agency BBDO Worldwide Inc. in 2004. An appeals court ruled against him Thursday.
Helm sued after the 1968 classic cropped up in an ad for what was then Cingular Wireless. He said he didn't approve that use.
But the appeals court says the recording contract surrounding the song gave a record label permission to license it to the agency.
Helm lawyer John O'Neill says the contract only gave the label permission to promote the music itself. BBDO's lawyer didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. |
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Court extends NYC church access to public schools
Court Feed News |
2012/03/01 17:58
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A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected an attempt by New York City to keep churches out of its public schools while a judge decides whether a city law banning them from its school buildings can be enforced.
But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals encouraged a lower court judge to act quickly after she ruled earlier this month that a small Bronx church can continue to meet in a public school for Sunday services, despite the city's threat to begin enforcing its ban on worship services in city schools. She later extended the order to include all of the roughly 40 churches meeting in public schools.
In a two-page order, the appeals court declined the city's request to block U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska from preventing enforcement while she hears the merits of a lawsuit brought by the Bronx Household of Faith.
She said the church was likely to win its First Amendment challenge and had demonstrated it would suffer irreparable harm if it could not continue to use Public School 15 for Sunday morning worship services. |
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Court seems split on double jeopardy question
Court Feed News |
2012/02/23 16:38
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The Supreme Court seemed divided Wednesday on whether to allow an Arkansas man to be retried on murder charges even though a jury forewoman said in open court that they were unanimously against finding him guilty.
Alex Blueford of Jacksonville, Ark., was charged in July 2008 in the death of 20-month-old Matthew McFadden Jr. Blueford testified at trial that he elbowed the boy in the head by accident. Authorities say the child was beaten to death.
Blueford's murder trial ended in a hung jury. The jury forewoman told the judge before he declared a mistrial that the jury voted unanimously against capital murder and first-degree murder. The jury deadlocked on a lesser charge, manslaughter, which caused the mistrial.
The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled last year that Blueford should be retried on the original charges. But Blueford's lawyers want justices to bar a second trial on capital and first-degree murder charges, saying that would violate Fifth Amendment protections preventing someone from being tried twice for the same crime. |
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